


Caricatures of Intimacy

by MissNaya



Series: Housewives [3]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Bi-Curiosity, Closeted Character, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Married Life, Multi, Period Typical Bigotry, Post-War, Psychological Trauma, Rule 63, underage being 17 at the beginning of their relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 04:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissNaya/pseuds/MissNaya
Summary: It's every poor girl's dream to be whisked out of poverty by a rich, handsome man, to live in a big house with a green lawn and a white picket fence.For Jay, it's her nightmare.





	Caricatures of Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

> so!! this has been in the works for a LONG time. it's a world I've been developing with some friends, and we finally decided to make it into an official series!
> 
> this fic will be set in the 1950s, so there are warnings for your standard shitty attitudes from that time period. the main focus being, of course, on the misogyny of that era, and how shitty it was to be a woman in general. if you tend to shy away from that sort of conflict, this fic won't be for you.
> 
> but if it sounds like something you'd like, please do read on! and make sure you check out the other entries in the series so this makes sense. enjoy!

Jane Faye Todd, Jay to everyone but her mother, was born in the fall of 1935, and barely made it through that winter. Her small, sickly body couldn’t take the draft in the tiny townhouse the Todds shared with 4 other families, nor the hunger after draining what little milk her mother managed to make. Unable to afford formula, healthcare, or even basic insulation, this left them shielding baby Jane from the elements with their own bodies and shushing her cries night after night.

Her mother developed a cough that winter that never quite went away, or so Jay’d been told. A cough that would land her a steady prescription of Benzedrine for most of Jay’s early life. It wasn’t until she got a little older and learned what “getting high” was that she realized most people’s coughs go away after a few weeks.

Maybe that’s the reason they stayed in that cramped place with all those other families for so long. Maybe, if things were different, they could’ve afforded their own TV, so Jay wouldn’t have to crowd around the corner store windows to watch theirs. Or maybe they could have gotten their old, crackly radio fixed, so it wouldn’t cut to static every tenth word.

But “maybe” is worthless, so Jay never dwells on it. There’d be too many maybes in her life otherwise. Questions about the life they might’ve had if her father made it back from the war, if they hadn’t thrown him on the front lines for trying to dodge the draft. About what the world would be like in general, were it not for the poisonous touch of men with too much power.

She should have stayed skeptical her whole life. Should never have given any of them a chance. But in those post-war years, with their pension barely paying the bills and the country still trying to pull itself together enough to move forward, there was little she could do but try to join the men’s world.

Her mother’s “cough” got worse when they got the news Willis died in battle, and from there, most of her time was spent with her inhaler, staring blankly into space next to the old, hissing radio. She couldn’t work if she tried. And nobody in their right mind would hire Jay, barely pubescent and scrawnier than most girls her age.

So she had to find people who  _ weren’t _ in their right minds.

She already wore hand-me-downs from some of the older kids in the house; it wasn’t hard to dress in shapeless slacks and baggy shirts like the boys. Her mother occasionally protested how short she kept her hair, but was never lucid enough to stop her from cutting it.

The jobs Jay took weren’t “respectable,” but they paid well. A quarter here and a dime there added up fast, and those were just the errand boy jobs. When Jay got old enough to tag along on heists,  _ that’s _ when things started looking up.

It’s not like she wanted to be a crook. She knew everything she gained that way was at someone else’s expense. But with their scant pension being spent up on her mother’s inhalers, and a new part of the house breaking what felt like weekly, there wasn’t much choice. They may have lived with other people, but that didn’t mean they were all one family, and failing to pull your weight was, well… You just didn’t do it.

God, looking back, she hates all her justifications. Everyone out there had problems; it was no excuse. She wishes she had stamped down her pride and taken up a sewing apprenticeship or something.

Mostly, she just wishes she had never met Roman Sionis.

She didn’t know him by that name at first. Back then, he was just Black Mask, the hottest up-and-comer in the Narrows underworld. His gang, the False Face Society, were the new kids on the block, heavily leaning into the surrounding territories. Ambitious. Hostile. There was no choice but to go on the offense, Jay’s home gang said. Show the newbies who’s boss.

Jay was around 17 then, but when she was 10, she used to sit by the radio with everyone else, silent as the grave while newscasters delivered updates on the war efforts. Most of the people around her, kids and adults alike, cheered when news of the surrender came, but all Jay could ever think about was what came before it. All the civilians who’d been sacrificed while fat-cat generals sat around playing chess with their lives.

She knew what would happen to the neighborhood if someone were to start an all-out gang war. She thought about her mother and everyone else trapped in that cramped little house, nailing up scavenged wood to board up windows ridden with bullet holes. The cops, if they came at all, would fire on them just as surely as they’d fire on Maroni’s crew or the False Facers. Nobody with any power to do anything at all ever gave a damn about the Narrows.

A war would ruin everything they’d all worked so hard to build. War was a stupid thing, a man’s game, not because they were more capable, but because they were the only ones stupid enough to send themselves into ruin just to deal a blow to the enemy. Jay wouldn’t sit idly by and let a bunch of pigheaded men decide her future anymore.

Finding work as a double agent was surprisingly easy, but then, generals have always been eager for more footsoldiers. Her father learned that lesson the hard way.

Jay didn’t intend to play such a bit part.

Working her way up in the ranks of the False Face Society was easier than she expected. All the gangsters wore masks, from intricately-carved exotic creatures to rubber things shaped like common animals. Jay was slender enough in the face to fit into an old, dirty Mickey Mouse gas mask that one of her cousins still had from near the end of the war. The mouthpiece kept her voice just garbled enough to pass for a youngish boy.

Black Mask himself wore a carved wooden skull, painted obsidian, only his eyes shining out from behind it. It added a new, dangerous flair to the traditional mob boss look, all slacks and suspenders and Tommy guns an arm’s reach away.

And he was dangerous. Gone were the simple execution-style killings from the gang wars Jay had watched growing up, replaced by brutal tortures and public displays of cruelty. It was like the Great War really did drive everyone insane, new, crazier villains crawling out of the rubble.

By the time Jay realized how deep into this mess she truly was, she’d fired more than a few bullets of her own. She didn’t partake in the senseless violence her peers enjoyed, but she was smart, and fast, and a better shot than any of the men in the gang. For the first time in her life, her hard work paid off.

Black Mask noticed her.

Their first encounter still feels like a vivid dream. She doesn’t remember much of it, couldn’t tell you what Roman said to her to get her alone in his office. Just knows her heart was pounding up in her throat and her ears as he circled her, like a predator and his prey. Like she’d been found out, and was about to meet the same fate as the foul-smelling garbage bags she and the others had weighed down and tossed into the harbor countless times.

She does remember one line. Breathed into her ear from behind, that cold, hard mask close enough to touch her.

“ _ I know your secret. _ ”

Her secret. The one she’d been hiding under the layers of bandage that he starts to unwind under her shirt. The other one between her legs, the one that dampens when he caresses her nipples.

She lost every bit of virginity there was to lose that night. Roman showed her things, made her  _ feel _ things, that she never thought possible. The sinful twist of his tongue and thrust of his hips helped Jay lose herself, and when she collapsed into a weeping, bleeding, shaking heap at the end of it all, Roman was there to catch her.

He kept her secret after that, let her continue working for him, on the condition that he have access to her body whenever he wanted. And it was a small price to pay to ensure the future safety of the Narrows, Jay told herself, when she wasn’t begging for forgiveness from a God she wasn’t sure she believed in for letting herself enjoy it.

It’s funny. For a while,  _ she _ thought she was playing  _ him. _

Because her plan did work in the end. Not only did a gang war fizzle out before it could start, but Roman even had the False Facers chase some of the scum out of the Narrows. He ran the same protection racket as Maroni, but asked for much less, painting himself as the benevolent new leader of the Underworld. Even sent money directly to Jay’s mom, so Jay could use her own pay on herself.

They stayed together for so long that it became impossible to keep pretending to be a man. Her body filled out with the help of all the meals, exercise, and medicine she was now able to afford, breasts bulging to the point where she could no longer properly tape them down, hips widening to match. Roman loved playing with her hair, so she grew it out. Finally, he spirited her gas mask away one night, leaving a delicate, painted, ceramic female face in its place. Slender nose, painted lips, and a beauty mark beneath blank blue eyes, unable to make any other expression.

“ _ Circe, _ ” he called her in front of the others.

Jay doesn’t read much in front of people, but she holds a special place in her heart for literature. Books give her a look at the wider world, a glimpse into perspectives she’d never be able to consider otherwise. Among them, the Greek classics, while particularly “unladylike,” are some of Jay’s favorites.

Circe was depicted as sexual, predatory, a stark contrast to the demure femininity that was expected of proper ladies in the modern age. An expressionless, uncanny face over a body that could drive men wild.

Perhaps that’s why she’d turn them into beasts, but Jay was never such a fan of the literal. It was her humble opinion that men were already monsters, even without four legs and fangs.

Once Jay’s hair hung a few inches past her shoulders, Roman informed her they’d be getting married by the end of the year. He said he wanted to settle down, get out of the crime business and go legit. Jay knew it was because the False Facers were in the GCPD’s eye and he needed to lie low.

She said yes anyway. What other option was there? He was still responsible for sending money to her mother, and it wasn’t as if her hands were clean, either. Besides, the sex was incredible, and he rarely turned his anger on her if a False Facer was around. She’d lead a comfortable life with Roman. He…  _ understood _ her oddities, in a way not many men would.

They had their honeymoon in a resort in the Poconos. She’d wanted to see Niagara Falls, but Roman scoffed at the idea of such an expensive trip, when “There’s a perfectly good honeymoon spot right over the state line!”

They stayed in the “Roman Tower Suite,” of course, which was a tacky thing filled with heart-shaped furniture and ugly red carpet. But the champagne was endless, and the staff treated them like celebrities, catering to their every whim as Roman slipped them $20s like it was going out of style.

So much for their expenses.

Even still, that honeymoon was the high point of their marriage. Roman worshipped her like a queen, ate her out until she was in a daze, fucked her by the heart-shaped hot tub after rubbing ice all over her flushed body. She imagined her life by Roman’s side, in his lap, spending her time with someone who knows her worth, well and truly. Someone who wouldn’t just dismiss her for being a woman.

She couldn’t have been more wrong. The second he carried her over the threshold of their new two-story house in the suburbs, it was like a switch flipped. From that day on, she was no longer Jay Todd, best with a pistol in the False Face Society, but Jane Sionis, housewife and walking product model to the CEO of Janus Cosmetics.

She traded her slacks for dresses, her Ariel Red Hunter for the sleek car Roman wouldn’t let her drive, and her view of the city from tall buildings for a few windows over the kitchen sink and by the front door, through which she could see identical pastel suburban homes and green, manicured grass.

A decade ago, she’d think of this neighborhood as Heaven compared to the cramped, rat-infested streets of the Narrows. It’s funny how things change.

In the time they live together there on 386 Darley-Coxswain Road, Jay watches a lot through those windows. She watches the local gardener, Pam, tend to the neighborhood plants, with hair as red as the rose bushes she loves. She watches children play, and secretly thanks God Roman doesn’t want kids yet. She watches people come and go and come again, “For Sale” signs appearing and disappearing just like the bruises on her wrists.

Roman rarely pays the same amount of attention she does to the neighbors. When he isn’t working or expecting to be doted on ( _ as a good wife does,  _ which he frequently reminds her), he’s reading the paper and grumbling about something or other. Property values, today, as Jay peers out through the curtains at the new moving van on their street, the second one in a week.

She spots the man of the family first. Darker-skinned and wearing some sort of headscarf -- words like “turban” and “shemagh” come to mind from Jay’s books, but she’s not sure which, if any, are correct -- he’s certainly different than the usual men she’s grown to expect seeing in their tiny, sheltered neighborhood. Handsome, too, with a dark beard and broad shoulders.

But it’s the wife who stumbles into his arms, grinning and laughing, that really catches Jay’s eye. Dark waves styled close to her head, red-painted lips, long legs under a too-short polka-dotted dress, it’s like she just stepped out of a magazine or a pin-up poster. Jay’s mouth goes dry when she sees her. Her heart twists up, the same way it did when she caught the other new neighbor crying in her yard the other day, or when Pam comes in for lemonade. A feeling between curiosity and protectiveness that she can’t explain.

It isn’t until Roman settles behind her, tall and oppressive in his presence, that she snaps out of it.

“Pretty little thing,” he says, in that tone that makes her stomach sick. “Isn’t she, Jay?”

Tense and cold, Jay shrugs. Taking one last look at the couple as the man carries the woman over the threshold, she lets the curtain fall back into place.

“She’s alright.”

As she walks away to go finish washing dishes and prepare Roman his evening brandy, she says a silent prayer for the new girl.

The happy ones never stay that way for long.

**Author's Note:**

> check out my [tumblr](https://dicktofen.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/hotdadnaya) to stay in touch!


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